The problem with visualization

During my burnout journey, I tried multiple self-help methods and worked a lot on changing the habits and mindsets that have led to my burning out. Many mentors, from the full-out woo woo all the way to hard core brain scientists, recommend visualizing your desired result, either to manifest, call upon the universe to give you what you want (woo) or to create new neural networks to cement the new habit (science). However, throughout the entire spectrum, people fail to stress what I believe is the absolute key to a useful visualization:

The science behind visualizations is robust, especially with athletes. We’ve all heard the stories of how athletes mentally rehearse their every movement, hear the crowds cheering for them, and go on to physically win. The key here is that they visualize in minute detail all the movements they make that lead up to the perfect throw, run, etc. They don’t only visualize themselves standing on the podium receiving a gold medal. However, so many visualization instructions in other fields focus on the end result, the vision board, the ideal image of success, perfect, amazing, beyond everything we’ve ever imagined. This is the same as having the athlete only imagine themselves receiving the medal, with no mental practice of the steps leading up to it.

Visualizing only the end result has two downsides. First, it often feels like a lie, and causes resistance. This is what happened to me in the past, and made me hate visualizations, to the point that I skipped them altogether. Despite everything I knew about it working, when I tried to implement these success visualizations, they just felt like a pile of cosmic bullshit. The second downside, research shows, is that these overly idealistic fantasies sap your energy and actually reduce your chances of realizing them. What DOES work, as should be obvious from how athletes use them, is actually to visualize the very detailed steps leading up to the desired outcome. And not only a string of positive steps, but also visualize what happens when you run into roadblocks. Visualize the entire journey leading to what you want, and then you can glance at your vision board.